


Let it end

by assuwatar



Category: Hittite kingdom
Genre: Character Death, Child Death, Gen, this is a story about the consequences of murder so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 16:30:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16141121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assuwatar/pseuds/assuwatar
Summary: The Proclamation of Telepinu speaks of mercy. But it was written in blood.





	Let it end

_nu tarškemi apēwamu idalu iēr ugawaruš idalu natta iyami_  
and I kept saying: they harmed me, but I will not harm them

– Telepinu Proclamation, §23

* * *

‘Leave them.’

I don’t know what makes me say it, loudly enough that my voice carries over the clang of swords and the grunts of men. Without letting go of my son, I rise to my feet and face the skirmish. The bloodstained shadows look out of place in this bedroom chamber. This is not the setting for a slaughter.

But I should’ve expected them to come. Gods curse me, I should’ve known it would happen one day.

‘Leave them,’ I say again. ‘Let it end here.’

One of the assassins sneers; my soldiers knock him down. They hold each of the intruders in their grasp now, throats bared, blades ready. But now I’ve spoken, they don’t move. A strange silence fills the room.

A woman wails.

At once, the realisation of what has happened comes back to me like a kick to the stomach. Grant these men life, I just said, and here I am in clothes soaked red, my arms wrapped around the body of my only son. Near the wall, I can barely glimpse the silhouette of the wailing handmaiden, bent over my murdered wife. Her wounds mirror those of our child: cruel, jagged gashes where neck and shoulder meet, enough to kill them twice over. The warmth of their last breaths is still on the hands of those who tore it from them.

And I just gave orders to grant these men life.

Disgust wells in my heart, but it’s too late. Pushing the assassins towards the door, my soldiers leave. I stand still, in a daze. A priest is here now. He tries to withdraw my son from my arms; I tighten my grasp. The priest touches my shoulder and explains the bodies must be taken, washed, shrouded, prepared for the other place according to custom.

‘Not yet,’ I whisper, ‘please,’ and I kiss my son’s forehead as the tears run down my cheeks.

The priest sighs and moves away, leaving me to sink to my knees again. My undone hair clings to my boy’s face. I brush it back so I can see him better. He’s pale, too pale – his cheeks so often flushed red from laughing are bone-like – but he’s beautiful. Even in death, he looks so much like his mother. Both my children always did.

I jolt my head up. Ḫarapšeki. Where is she?

My eyes trace every shadow in the room, both living and sprawled on the floor, but her tiny shape is nowhere to be found. I call the handmaiden. She starts and stares at me, eyes wide, chin still shaking.

‘Where is my daughter?’

‘I… I don’t… I think she escaped, Your Sun.’ Her words barely make their way out of her throat. ‘Towards the courtyard.’

My insides turn to ice. The soldiers won’t have had time to search the palace yet. In a wide, open space like that, a child could be anyone’s target.

Gently, though it rips me apart, I lay my son down next to my wife. Ḫarapšeki will not suffer the same death as them. Pulling my dagger from its sheath – it was made to be worn at official ceremonies, but better an ornamental blade than no blade at all – I stand up and run into the corridor. I came too late this time. I will not come too late again.

At first, my daughter’s wet steps are easy to follow, but they soon fade into the dusty floor. I hurry in one direction then the next, too afraid to shout her name. She is not in the courtyard – and she isn’t in the stables either, nor in the throne room. The servants huddling in the kitchens tell me they haven’t seen her. I open all the doors to the storage rooms, ready at any moment to fight an assassin hiding behind them. Nothing. Heart pounding, I lean against the threshold. What if they took her?

Then I hear a small sob.

I spin around. She’s there, crouched between two pithoi, hugging her knees to her chest. I sheathe my dagger and crawl in next to her, gather her in my arms, hold her as tightly as I can. Tears burn at my eyes again.

‘ _Atta_ ,’ she hiccups. ‘ _Atta_.’

‘I’m here.’ I rock her like a baby, whispering into her ear. ‘It’s all right, dearest. You’re safe now. It’s all right.’

Her red eyes meet mine. With her face crumpled up like that, she looks far younger than she is.

‘It can’t be all right. Not ever.’

Her words dig into me. _I’m sorry_ , I want to say, _I’m so sorry. I thought it would end with me. I thought I could protect you._ I clasp her head to my chest, my lips against her brow, and for the first time in her life I feel utterly helpless. Nothing I can say will reassure her after this. She’s already seen the worst.

And gods curse me, I granted the men who did it life.

‘They did bad things to _anna_ and Ammuna,’ Ḫarapšeki whimpers. ‘They tried to do bad things to me too, but I ran away.’

‘I know, dearest. You were so brave. I’m so proud of you.’

‘Are you going to do bad things to them now?’

My voice catches in my throat. My daughter looks up at me.

‘Uncle Ḫantili always said you have to. Otherwise they’ll hurt us again.’

The memory of his voice washes over me. _This throne is built on bloodshed_ , I remember him telling me before he and Titti were murdered. _Either you kill or you die._ I could almost hear him jeering when I took back the power and let Ḫuzziya the usurper, then my brothers’ assassins, live. _You’ll be dead in three months’ time, Telepinu._ But I had to change things. I had to trust mercy would be more fruitful than revenge.

 _Someone has to pave the way for goodness_ , I said to the assembly when the assassins were brought before me. _Someone has to put their weapons down. Let it be me._

And now my wife and son have paid the price.

I swallow a curse. I should not have let these men go. I should have had their throats slit right there, onto my family’s bodies – should have been harsher from the beginning and killed the first of them, back when my brothers died. I shouldn’t be kneeling here, with my heartbroken six-year-old in my arms. I shouldn’t, and yet –

‘I promise I’ll do my best to do what is right,’ I breathe to Ḫarapšeki.

The words are more formulaic than anything, the instinctive soothing of a father, but I have to say them. To hear them. I run my fingers through my child’s hair and try not to notice the blood drying on them.

‘ _Atta_ ,’ she says and huddles closer.

‘I’m here.’

So is she, I tell myself as I hold her. I can’t take the sights and sounds of this day from her mind, but she deserves more than this. For her sake, if for nobody else’s, I need to believe.

They hurt us.

But this needs to end.

*

The smoke from the funeral pyres still clings to my clothes when I walk into the throne room, at dawn two days later, to meet the Chief Scribe. He seats himself at the foot of the throne, stylus poised, clay already moulded into a tablet. The priest at my side steadies me as I sit down in turn. The exhaustion of the last days wears at me, but I can’t rest yet.

I begin to dictate.

‘Thus speaks the Tabarna Telepinu, Great King…’

The history of our kingdom, the unity then the betrayals, the new laws for succession all roll off my tongue as the scribe writes, nail-shaped wedges making their way down the clay. When I get to the deaths of my wife and son, my throat closes. The priest clasps my shoulder.

‘Bloodshed is common in Ḫattuša,’ he says, as if to give me comfort. ‘You are not the first.’

I turn and lock eyes with him. The scribe waits, stylus at the ready. I speak gently.

‘No. I will be the last.’

**Author's Note:**

> The Proclamation of Telepinu was written around the 15th century BC, after a long period of royal backstabbing which saw most of Telepinu's family die. The ideology behind the Proclamation is one of peace and harmony, and it is particularly striking in Telepinu's insistence that bloodshed will not put an end to bloodshed. During his lifetime, he was successful in stabilising the kingdom; his death, however, brought about a new period of backstabbing, which lasted a full century. Still, his Proclamation is a testimony to his ideals of peace, even in a world ruled by retribution.


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